NYC school bus strike shows little sign of ending; bids due Monday

The school bus strike will soon enter its fourth week, but there is little sign of progress. Here, school buses pull out of the Atlantic Express bus yard in Chelsea with replacement drivers behind the wheel as striking bus drivers look on.Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, NY -- As students who would typically be safely riding in a yellow bus made it to school in Friday's rough weather in carpools, on public transportation or by foot -- ways of "getting there" that have become the new normal over the past three-plus weeks -- the school bus driver strike showed little sign of abating.

An overflow crowd Friday morning filled City Council chambers, as the members of the Finance and Education Committees heard testimony from key players about why the cost of transporting 152,000 school children is so high, and whether putting school bus contracts out to bid -- the move that prompted the strike -- will save the city substantially.

The bids for transporting the city's students are due on Monday, and
Tuesday the city will begin to decide which companies it will select for
the job.

But even as the school children continue to lose, the city, thus far, seems to have come out the winner, at least financially, as a result of the strike.

The city has saved some $33 million from not paying school bus companies since Jan. 16 when drivers and matrons of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 went on strike. This is after accounting for costs of roughly $17 million as of Monday to reimburse parents for MetroCards, taxi vouchers and mileage reimbursements for personal vehicles.

"The union is responsible for the strike, but the city is responsible for not ending it," said Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid Island/Brooklyn), a member of the Finance Committee, who last week, along with other council members, sent a letter to the administration beseeching them to start talks with the union. "The city believes it's winning. It's hard to bring the city to the table when they think we're winning it."

Oddo said putting the contracts out to bid, something which has not been done since 1979, would certainly save money, but it is not the only way to cut back in a system of 7,700 bus routes, which costs the city $1.1 billion annually.

"It's the first time they're bidding the contract in 33 years: Anybody who says there aren't savings here is mistaken, but it's a collision between heart and head," said Oddo. "Are there bus routes that are inefficient; is there a way of doing smaller routes, all of that should be on the table."

As of Thursday, 100 percent of pre-kindergarten routes were running, along with 13 percent of general education routes and 41 percent of special education routes, according to the city Department of Education.

Still, attendance rates -- particularly among special education students -- has been markedly lower since the strike's start, with roughly 70 percent showing up on average, as opposed to the usual 86 percent for Special Education District 75.

Meanwhile striking bus drivers plan to hold a unity march and rally with other unions, with the march starting at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn Sunday and the group traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge for a rally at City Hall.

But, their voices, no matter how loud, cannot change the fact that Monday the bids are due.

"There is an excellent chance this will either go to a non-union company, or a company with a different union," warned President of Pioneer Bus Company Neil Strahl in a letter sent Thursday to the striking drivers and matrons of ATU 1181. "The strike will have meant nothing; it will not have changed the mayor's mind; it will have been pointless."